Jack Karnehm on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Jack Karnehm (18 June 1917,
Tufnell Park
Tufnell Park is an area in north London, England, in the London boroughs of Islington and Camden.
The neighborhood is served by Tufnell Park tube station on the Northern Line.
History
Origins and boundary
;Medieval and later manor
Tufnel ...
, north
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
– 28 July 2002,
Crowthorne
Crowthorne is a large village and civil parish in the Bracknell Forest district of south-eastern Berkshire, England. It had a population of 6,711 at the 2001 census, which rose to 6,902 at the 2011 census. A 2020 estimate put it at 7,808. Cr ...
,
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...
) was a British
snooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...
commentator, who was regularly heard on
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
television from 1978 until 1994, and a former
amateur world champion at the game of
English billiards
English billiards, called simply billiards in the United Kingdom and in many former British colonies, is a cue sport that combines the aspects of carom billiards and pool. Two (one white and one yellow) and a red are used. Each player or team ...
. Karnehm was also a professional snooker and billiards player.
Besides his commentary, perhaps his major contribution to the game was his development of the swivel-lens glasses, which enabled
Dennis Taylor
Dennis Taylor (born 19 January 1949) is a Northern Irish retired professional snooker player and current commentator. He is best known for winning the 1985 World Snooker Championship, where he defeated the defending champion Steve Davis in a ...
to win the
World Snooker Championship in 1985. These were spectacles which were set at a compensatory angle, so the player could look along the shot through the optical centre of the lens. The originals had been designed by Theodore Hamblin, and pioneered by
Fred Davis in 1938. Karnehm, who had served a five-year spectacle-making apprenticeship, made many pairs in his family business, but his upside-down design was a considerable improvement – it offered wider peripheral vision – and helped Taylor win the 1985 world title.
Despite being best known to snooker audiences, Karnehm's passion was
billiards
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as .
There are three major subdivisions ...
. As a non-professional player, he was a ten-time London Amateur Billiards Champion, and also won the English Amateur Billiards Championship in 1969. That October, he took the
IBSF World Billiards Championship
The IBSF World Billiards Championship (previously known as the World Amateur Billiards Championship) is the premier, international, non-professional tournament for the game of English billiards. Dating to some form to 1951, the event has been sanc ...
title.
Karnehm turned professional in 1970, and was a challenger for the world title in 1971 and 1973, losing to
Leslie Driffield
Leslie Driffield (1912–1988) was an English world champion player of English billiards. He won the World Amateur Billiards Championship title twice, in 1952 and 1967; and the Billiards and Snooker Control Council version of the world professi ...
and
Rex Williams
Desmond Rex Williams (born 20 July 1933) is a retired English professional snooker and billiards player. He was the second player to make an official maximum break, achieving this in an exhibition match in December 1965. Williams won the Worl ...
respectively. He was
Chairman
The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...
of the
Billiards Association and Control Council
The Billiards and Snooker Control Council (B&SCC) (formerly called the Billiards Association and Control Council (BA&CC)) was the governing body of the games of English billiards and snooker and organised professional and amateur championships ...
when the Council nominated
Leslie Driffield
Leslie Driffield (1912–1988) was an English world champion player of English billiards. He won the World Amateur Billiards Championship title twice, in 1952 and 1967; and the Billiards and Snooker Control Council version of the world professi ...
as the challenger to reigning champion
Rex Williams
Desmond Rex Williams (born 20 July 1933) is a retired English professional snooker and billiards player. He was the second player to make an official maximum break, achieving this in an exhibition match in December 1965. Williams won the Worl ...
for the
professional Billiards Championship. Williams declined to play Driffield within the five months time limit that the BA&CC Council had set, which expired on 7 July 1970, and forfeited the title, which was then contested between Driffield and Karnehm in June 1971. On 1 October 1970, the Professional Billiard Players Association, which had been reestablished in 1968 Williams and seven other players, disaffiliated from the BA&CC. It changed its name to the
World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards based in Bristol, England. It owns and publishes the official rules of the two sports and engages in promotion ...
on 12 December 1970, and declared itself the governing body for the professional game, recognising Williams as champion. Driffield and Karnehm were, at first, the only two professionals to recognise the BA&CC's authority over the game.
In 1980, Karnehm beat Williams to win the UK Billiards Championship, his only professional title.
Karnehm is perhaps best known for his one-liner when he was commentating on a match between
Cliff Thorburn
Clifford Charles Devlin Thorburn (born 16 January 1948) is a Canadian retired professional snooker player. Nicknamed "The Grinder" because of his slow, determined style of play, he won the World Snooker Championship in 1980, defeating Alex Hi ...
and
Terry Griffiths
Terence Martin Griffiths (born 16 October 1947) is a Welsh retired professional snooker player and current snooker coach and pundit. In his second professional tournament, he became world champion when he won the 1979 World Snooker Champion ...
, at the Crucible in 1983. The match was famous because, during the match, Thorburn completed the first maximum at the Crucible. As Thorburn lined up to pot the black, Karnehm uttered the words: 'Good luck, mate'.
Karnehm was also a noted snooker coach, and, in 1985, released an instructional video, 'Understanding Modern Snooker'. He continued to coach, and was still President of the Radstock Billiards association until 2000. He died suddenly in 2002, aged 85, after an afternoon working on his garden in extreme heat.
Tournament Wins
English Billiards
*1969 IBSF World Billiards Championship
*1980 UK Billiards Championship
References
External links
Obituary in ''The Guardian''
* Obituary in ''The Irish Times'', 3 August 2002
{{DEFAULTSORT:Karnehm, Jack
1917 births
2002 deaths
British sports broadcasters
Snooker players from London
Snooker writers and broadcasters
English players of English billiards
People from Islington (district)
Deaths from hyperthermia